The India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity is a three-year initiative between Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), to explore areas for closer cooperation. Experts, government officials and business leaders will convene annually to promote bilateral economic growth and innovation in today’s digital economy.

India and Canada maintain strong bilateral relations built on the foundation of shared values and healthy economic ties. Economic exchanges between India and Canada are on an upward trajectory, but there continue to be unexplored areas for mutually beneficial growth, especially in light of rapid developments in technology that are changing every facet of the economy and society in both countries. To address these challenges, the partnership will help develop policy recommendations to promote innovation and navigate shared governance issues that are integral to the continued growth of India-Canada bilateral relations.

The India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity strives to build closer ties between India and Canada and nurture the relationship to its full potential. India and Canada can be global leaders in innovation and the India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue will seek opportunities to work jointly on multilateral issues and identify areas where improved cooperation could benefit both countries.

In addition to its focus on innovation, the partnership will examine topics such as collaboration on research and higher education, promotion of India-Canada trade and investment, energy cooperation, and issues pertaining to global governance.

Through this partnership, India and Canada can be intellectual partners and cooperate in the design of their global governance frameworks.

The roundtable meeting was held in Mumbai. The participants included representatives from India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Global Affairs Canada; and other distinguished representatives. The discussions focused on issues related to cyber security, economic relations, geoengineering and climate leadership, as well as a broader perspective on India and Canada’s diplomatic relations.

While India and Canada are each individually taking steps to enhance their cyber security capacity, increased collaboration between the two countries in the realm of cyber security would increase systemic trust while creating opportunities to promote the nations’ strategic and economic interests. There are several similarities in the cyber security threats that both countries face, including being the subjects of attacks with suspected Chinese origins, and mutual concerns over terrorism and election manipulation.

Aarun Shull is Managing Director and General Counsel, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

India and Canada face multiple common cyber security challenges. Not the least of these are digital black markets, where contraband and illegal services are bought and sold. These markets have abetted drug smuggling, facilitated cyber crimes and contributed to terrorist activities. Despite frequent security crackdowns, these marketplaces have proved to be resilient. This paper reviews the measures both India and Canada have taken to disrupt digital black markets and examines opportunities to expand current security cooperation strategies.

Both countries can work bilaterally and move to discredit these marketplaces. At the multilateral level, the two countries can contribute to international security and cyberspace stability by building the capacity to fight cybercrime while raising these issues at the Group of Twenty and the Conference on Disarmament. In shaping such collaboration, both India and Canada will need to demonstrate innovative thinking in the manner already shown by the digital black markets.

Sameer Patil is Director, Center for International Security and Fellow, National Security Studies, Gateway House

The UN’s Paris Agreement is best known as the commitment by nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rise in global temperatures. But less-heralded provisions of the pact go further than that. In an acknowledgment that emissions-reduction alone will not resolve the unfolding climate crisis, a call has been made for the development of carbon sinks to remove gases already in the atmosphere. These less-heralded greenhouse gas removal technologies are essential to achieving the pact’s goal of keeping the global average surface temperature from rising more than the 1.5 degrees Celsius. These steps are also a key to ensuring that India and Canada meet their ambitious climate-action goals without suffering severe socio-economic and climatic harm.

Countries in the Global South are incentivized through funding schemes, such as the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SRMGI) Decimal Fund, to invest in pathways that could lead toward justification for deployment of climate intervention technologies, but without adequate consideration of the social dimensions of engagement in climate intervention research. Simply funding basic climate engineering modelling will not be effective in supporting climate intervention experimentation.

The paper recommends a three-step process to remedy this oversight and to do so, keeping in mind the imperatives of responsible research and action: Canada and India could engage with a leading African country to consider what participation in climate intervention research would mean in their context and to develop a viewpoint to engage on the topic at an international level; encourage Canadian and Indian counterparts to conduct national policy discussions on climate intervention research; and increase public awareness of climate intervention technologies, coupled with democratic participatory governance.

On October 30, 2018, at the Fairmount Château Laurier in Ottawa, Canada, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) will host Canada’s inaugural session of the India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity. This session will bring together experts and government officials to examine issues related to cyber security, economic relations, geoengineering and climate leadership and to have a broader discussion on India and Canada’s diplomatic relations. Participants include Rohinton Medhora, President of CIGI; Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director at Gateway House; representatives from India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Global Affairs Canada; and other distinguished representatives.

The increasingly digital economy is changing daily life in emerging and advanced economies alike; India and Canada are no exception. While both nations face their own unique challenges amid rapid technological advancement, their shared values create a unique opportunity for collaboration. The Canada-India Track 1.5 Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity — a three-year partnership between the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Gateway House — was created to explore those opportunities.

By convening experts, government officials and business leaders, the Track 1.5 Dialogue will promote bilateral economic growth and innovation, and identify areas where improved cooperation could benefit both countries. In this video, CIGI President Rohinton P. Medhora, Gateway House Executive Director Manjeet Kripalani — along with government stakeholders from both Canada and India — introduce the Dialogue and what it hopes to accomplish.

On 20 February 2018, Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director of Gateway Houseand Rohinton Medhora, President of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), along with the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, Minister of National Defence of the Government of Canada, announced the launch of the Canada-India Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity, an initiative that will convene key experts, government officials and business leaders to promote bilateral economic growth and innovation in today’s digital economy.